Better the Angel You Know
by shego219
Summary: Unabashed AU in which human brothers Gabriel and Castiel hunt their MIA father and the monsters left in his wake while angels Sam and Dean have their work cut out for them fighting demons.  Eventual Sabriel and Destiel


**Better the Angel You Know**

**Summary**: Unabashed AU in which human brothers Gabriel and Castiel hunt their MIA father and the monsters left in his wake while angels Sam and Dean have their work cut out for them fighting demons.

**Pairings**: past Gabriel/Kali, eventual Gabriel/Sam and Dean/Castiel, Becky/Chuck, possibly more to come

**A/N**: Basically, this is a Swap!AU with humanized angels and some angel-ized humans ... plus prophet!Bobby and hunter!Chuck, just 'cause. Endless thanks to_Garama_, whose artwork inspired this, with a special "thank you" to _Generic-Nerd-Blog_, whose reblogged commentary inspired the swap of John Winchester with Michael as well as the future inclusion of Lucifer.

_"You've got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down." - Ray Bradbury_

It started, as many recent Novak family adventures did, with Castiel forgetting to call ahead before jaunting across the country.

That's the way Gabriel tells the story, anyway. For him it actually began on a dark and stormy night, which he'd love to start with, but he (correctly) assumes his audience would think he was lying. Normally, he would be, but tales as outlandish as this, he's better off not alienating his audience right off the bat.

Either way, it began around 2:47 the Thursday morning of July 5, which found Gabriel sitting on the counter in his kitchen eating a bowl of Trix and watching the downpour outside his living room window. He couldn't remember the last time it had rained that much in Los Angeles, but it was fitting. The odd burst of lightning would illuminate his apartment every now and again, showing him just how shabby and barren the place he called "home" was since she packed up.

Kali had moved out on Sunday, taking almost everything with her. All of her clothes and jewelry, the two armchairs, a floor lamp a set of dishes and silverware… Gabriel still wasn't sure how she'd managed all that in one afternoon. He would have figured her shoe collection alone would take a week.

She left the first of July, and Gabriel still wasn't sure why. They had been together for four years – living together for the past two – and as likely as it was for her to be secretive, Gabriel had a hard time believing she would walk without saying a word. In the weeks before she had been moody and withdrawn, but he had assumed that – as with most things Kali-related – the problem would come to a head with a knock-down, drag-out fight that had the neighbors calling for reinforcement.

The woman could barely order salad at a restaurant without drama, so why on Earth would she end a long-term relationship with a whimper instead of a bang?

Gabriel frowned and thought of the one belonging of hers he still had – a sizable blade he had nicked from her pantry when they'd first started dating. Right away he could tell it didn't belong in the silverware drawer it was buried in – oh sure, it was silver, but there was some sort of design on the metal face, something he felt he should recognize, and his hunter instincts just couldn't let him leave it. He was still surprised Kali hadn't reappeared to claim it considering… well, considering it was a big fucking knife.

His thoughts were interrupted by the breaking of glass, specifically of the glass in his living room window. Sitting up tall and silent, Gabriel watched with rapt attention as a hand wrapped in tan cloth reached in to undo the latch and swing the window open.

Gabriel was a half-second away from jumping off the counter and grabbing Kali's knife when the lean body managed to pull itself into the apartment through the broken glass fragments. While he didn't live in the nicest neighborhood, Gabriel knew there was no reason to panic, not once he recognized the ugly trench coat over an ugly business suit and the messy raven hair of his youngest brother.

Castiel Novak pulled himself up to his full height, brushing shards that sparkled under the moonlight off his shoulders. His intense, blue-eyed stare for once was not on anyone or anything particular.

"Hey, bro," Gabriel said between bites of cereal. "You know the door was unlocked…"

"We don't have time."

Gabriel looked up, his blood running cold. Yes, the voice was Castiel's, as deep and commanding as Gabriel remembered, but something about this was not quite right. "Time for what?"

"We don't have time," Castiel repeated, an undercurrent of panic rising in his tone. "We have to go."

Gabriel set his empty bowl in the sink, choosing to play Castiel's game of assertiveness. "I'm not going anywhere," he responded evenly, his underlying meaning being _you're not going anywhere_. "Sit down."

Castiel remained standing. Even as a kid, Gabriel remembered him always being stoic, looking fierce and determined even when decked out in footie pajamas.

In this light, though, he couldn't hide. Gabriel could see through the shadows to how withered his brother looked, how the dark circles under his blue eyes made him look like death warmed over. His rumpled clothes and mussed hair, the five o'clock shadow and rigid posture… everything about him screamed "tension," indicated days without rest.

"I did something stupid, Gabriel," Castiel said, staring at his brother without blinking. "So incredibly stupid."

His voice barely rose above a whisper, yet it scared Gabriel. Castiel never spoke like that, never hushed and wavering, never with words so pedestrian.

"Hey, Cas." Gabriel jumped down from the counter, walking slowly to the center of the room. "It's OK," he added softly. He couldn't keep from noting the weirdness of the situation, how he hadn't talked to Castiel like this – like _everything is going to be all right, you'll see_ – since they were kids.

Castiel flinched away from Gabriel before dropping back to sit on the couch. "No," he whispered, his breathing growing faster. "Nothing is fine." By now he was starting to shake, trembling with each shallow breath. With a stifled shout he grabbed his chest with both hands.

"Castiel." Gabriel could hear the worry, the urgency in his own voice but he couldn't voice any further thoughts. Instead, he grabbed both his brothers' shoulders and held him there, steadying and comforting.

Castiel moaned, burying his head in his shaking hands. "I think," he choked out.

"That you're having a panic attack?" Gabriel replied. "No shit, Sherlock."

"I think," Castiel repeated, shuddering slightly less and managing to make eye contact with Gabe, "we should start looking for Dad again."

Ordinarily, Gabe would jump at the call for adventure, but at the mention of their father he froze.

Elohim Novak had been a strange man, to say the least. The last living son in a long line of supernatural hunters, the man had trained his seven children to track and kill the things that went bump in the night practically from infancy. Gabriel had grown up knowing theirs was a world of angels and demons, of mythological beings waiting to strike and take his life. The old man had been gruff and strict, from what Gabriel could remember.

After his wife, Eden, had died giving birth to their seventh and final child, the old man had spiraled into a depression of sorts, growing distant and retreating into lore and the search for things not seen by any of his kids.

Four years later, when Gabriel was eight, his dad disappeared for good. Despite several years of searching, no one had seen or heard from him since then.

"Cas, we can't go looking for Dad," Gabriel stated, attempting to keep the hurt out of his voice. "He took off over twenty years ago, remember?"

"He wanted me to," Castiel said between pants, "he wanted me to follow the trail." At Gabriel's quizzical look, Castiel pulled a worn and tattered piece of paper out of his coat pocket and handed it over.

Frowning at his brother, Gabriel unfolded the paper to reveal a faded road map of the US. Across the country, several lines were drawn in red, their point of intersection somewhere in the state of Kansas. Gabriel nodded to himself – the Novak kids had been born and raised in Lawrence, staying there even after their father left. The family migrated east to New York when Gabriel was in high school, when Zachariah and Michael got work in the cities.

Turning the page over, Gabriel was faced with several panels cramped with writing, smeared and slanted as if the author had been rushed. Recognizing it as his father's handwriting, Gabriel scanned the paragraphs, but apart from Castiel's name at the top he couldn't make much of the message out in the faint light.

"It says I will go where the others won't, and my brothers will lead the way back," Castiel said.

Gabriel's eyebrows shot up. "Well that's incredibly helpful and terrifying. Where did you get this?" Castiel shuddered in response. "OK, fine, we can talk about it in the morning."

Castiel finally relaxed, slumping sideways to lay his head on the couch's armrest. His feet remained flat on the floor. Shaking his head, Gabriel retrieved a blanket and pillow from his own bed and threw them at his half-asleep brother, who made no move to lie down but didn't protest either.

Walking back to the kitchen, Gabriel ran a hand through his hair and watched Castiel struggle against sleep for another fifteen minutes before heading toward his own bed. He could figure out what was up when the was sun out.

When the morning came, Castiel wouldn't talk about it. If anything, he was even more stubborn in the daylight, refusing to eat anything out of Gabriel's fridge or move his car or even bring in his luggage. It wasn't until Friday night Gabriel connected the dots and realized his brother didn't _bring_ any luggage, mainly because Cas had been wearing the same rumpled suit and trench coat for the past forty-eight hours. He even slept in it, Gabriel noted when he was up in the middle of the night searching the kitchen for something edible, wrapped up in the coat like it was another blanket.

The space cadet had also left his cell phone in New York, leaving Gabriel to field his calls. No one really seemed to be looking for Castiel, though. Gabe received two blunt texts from Anna – "Is he with you?" followed by a simple "Good." when he responded in the affirmative – and one phone call from Zachariah that was quickly handed over to his youngest brother.

Gabriel would never understand why or how his brothers had turned to practicing law after years of hunting supernatural shit in rural Kansas. Maybe it was the stability or the power… At any rate, Zach and Michael, along with their cousins Raphael and Uriel, had started a firm after a few years in NYC, and given the current economy, business was booming. Castiel - who had graduated from college two years ago and was now working toward taking his CPA exam – served as their lowly accountant.

Sane siblings still existed, of course – Balthazar and Lucifer both left in search of gainful employment around the time Gabe did, and Anna moved to Boston to be a social worker with little contact to the rest of the family.

Gabriel frowned, wondering again why Castiel had come _here_ of all places. He hadn't been around Castiel as an adult all that much, having taken off as soon as he had graduated from high school and could afford a car. He remembered a handful of encounters – Christmas or Thanksgiving at Anna's, where he would razz his brother about college and still being a virgin and still being a square - but nothing spectacularly important.

Maybe Cas just needed to get away. Maybe that's all there was to his visit, Gabriel convinced himself. Cas freaked out and finally realized he needed a mental health vacation. If the panic attack was anything to go by, the dude had been pretty warped by the working world. Gabriel couldn't blame him – he couldn't think of a nicer way to say it, but he was starting to hate most people. He could understand where Castiel was coming from, this running from responsibility, and was therefore looking forward to helping his uptight younger brother unwind.

Castiel wasn't making it easy for him.

As a semi-freelance reporter for _The Messenger_, Gabriel typically left and returned to the apartment at weird hours, never the same routine each day. Somehow, no matter when he went or came, Castiel was there, sitting on the couch with a mug of coffee and the news on. His stupid Impala stayed parked in the same spot on the street day in and day out. Miraculously, it never received a parking ticket.

Hoping his hermit brother hadn't come all the way to LA to give him the silent treatment, Gabriel soon tried taking Castiel out, first for dinner then drinks at the bar around the corner. The younger Novak looked physically pained each time this occurred, his mournful looks preventing Gabriel from picking up any rebound guys or girls. After one failed attempt too many, Gabriel decided he would give Castiel seven more days of space before kicking him out.

His second week out west Castiel was gone every night, coming home at 5:30 the next morning covered in dirt and dark stains without a word of explanation.

Gabriel, unfortunately was too pissed off and too worried to relish his brother's absence. Despite his perpetual bravado, he remembers how daunting the city seemed when he was Castiel's age. Who knew what kind of trouble he was getting into?

It took three more nights of Gabriel pacing his apartment for him to come up with a plan. Admittedly, it was not a brilliant plan. When Castiel went out that night, Gabriel pretended to be focused on his latest story for _The Messenger_, waving his brother out the door without a backward glance. After that, he only had to wait a few minutes, pull on his cargo jacket and sneakers, then jump in his Mustang and follow Cas' car with his headlights off.

Much to his dismay, forty-five minutes later he found himself in the middle of a ring of vampires whose den-slash-gothic-LA-nightclub Castiel was trying to eradicate.

"I hate you," Gabriel told his younger brother as he moved to hide behind him. "I really, really do."

Castiel made quick work of the coven, slicing, dicing, beheading, staking nearly a third of the goons before Gabriel came to his senses and helped him drive off the rest, herding those who hadn't been turned yet out into the night. The kid was a freaking hellion when it came to hunting, which Gabriel found both disconcerting and amusing.

It was all downhill from there.

Slowly but surely, Gabriel's life started changing, falling into a routine of actually working during the day and helping Castiel on his crusades at night. His brother remained mum regarding his erratic behavior, even after extensive badgering from Gabriel, including keeping a straight face through the entire "100 Bottles of Beer on the Wall" song. Not trusting Castiel's car, Gabriel insisted on driving everywhere, and Castiel didn't complain.

His younger brother had a freakish sixth sense for finding these things, meaning the two Novaks were out every night salting-and-burning something. Castiel also proved scarily adept with weaponry, especially guns, and was agile enough to be successful in hand-to-hand combat as well.

As was his lot in life, Gabriel was still shorter than the rest of his family. Fortunately he found his was still craftier than the majority of their attackers, crafty enough to duck quick blows and utilize the element of surprise (even if he was growing overly fond of jumping on the attacker's back to throw him or her off balance). He had also somehow maintained his strength and was more than willing to tackle anyone or anything that got in his way.

Gabriel worried every so often about the direction this was taking him in, back down the road that led hunters to despair and ruin, but as long as the rest of his family stayed away Gabriel was more than willing to humor Castiel and help him fight the good fight for a while.

Not six hours after exorcising a creepy-ass daycare in Apple Valley one morning, Gabriel made the mistake of answering a call from a number he didn't recognize.

"Y'ello?" he mumbled through a mouthful of Twizzlers.

For a few seconds all Gabriel heard was shallow breathing. A voice finally followed, one he hadn't heard in roughly two years.

"Did you tell Castiel to let his search for Dad go?"

"Michael?" Though not nearly as estranged as their father, second-oldest Novak had been MIA for almost two years. Last any of Gabriel's brothers or Anna knew he was up in Alaska working on politics. The specifics Gabriel couldn't remember but he was positive it was something ridiculously altruistic, something Daddy would approve of like anti-whaling or anti-glacier-melting or something. "Dude, where are you?"

"I don't know if he'll listen to you or not," Michael continued, "but if you can, get him to drop it. I need you two to find Lucifer for me."

Gabriel groaned, not bothering to tell Michael he already knew his wayward brother's whereabouts. "Keep whatever is between you and Lucifer between you and Lucifer. You're sure as hell not putting me or any of the rest of us in the middle of it."

On the other end of the line, Michael huffed. "Since when are you not in a mood to visit Luci, even if it is just to piss me off? Unless you finally got a promotion at the paper or Castiel is keeping you running, I don't understand why you're suddenly so busy."

Gabriel realized just how much he'd lost his touch when he struggled to find a snappy comeback for his annoying older brother. Michael laughed into the stretching silence. "Oh you didn't. You finally wizened up and rejoined the family business, didn't you two?"

Gabriel hung up without replying. Michael called again three times the following week. Gabriel saved the number to his Contacts as a reminder to never answer those incoming calls.

* * *

><p>It was a Tuesday, the fourth one Castiel has spent in California, when seemingly innocent people started dying.<p>

It was the "seemingly" part Gabriel latched onto, and his adamancy led them to a library in San Jose to brush up on local trickster lore. His journalistic tendencies spun a most convincing tale involving retribution and "just desserts," but none of the data seemed to support his theorizing, and around noon Castiel convinced him to break for lunch. Neither brother commented on the oddness of having their roles reversed.

While driving along the coast in search of a gas station and the lure of cheap food, Castiel's weirdness magnet activated and the brothers found themselves at what appeared to be a boardwalk amusement part. The parking lot was packed with cars, but once the brothers came to a stop they noticed none of the rides seemed to be running and the area was suspiciously devoid of sounds, human or otherwise.

"Where is everyone?" Castiel asked, pushing through the unlocked front gates. Gabriel followed, content to let McGruff the Crime-Sniffing Dog search for the big bad; his personal search for carnival food was more pressing. He was knocking around a deserted cotton candy stand when something gray and bloodied caught his eye.

"Cas," he hissed, motioning for his brother to follow him. Together, they walked around the booth and watched as the figure Gabriel had seen lumbered into the shadows. Amber eyes met blue, and the two Novaks kept on the monster's trail.

The decaying figure unknowingly led them across the empty beach, toward what looked like a bonfire under the piers. Gabriel took a step forward when a scream rent the air.

"Are there… are there people under there?" He turned to look at Castiel, his face white as a sheet. "There are people over there being held hostage."

"Being eaten, if the smell is to be explained most readily," Castiel replied, wrinkling his nose. Gabriel now noticed the distinctive smell of burning human flesh, and his stomach turned.

"Cannibals?" he asked.

"Zombies, more likely," Castiel said, staring creepily as he was wont to do in the direction of the group. "Though quite advanced it would seem, maybe not as dehumanized as their kind typically is."

"All right," he whispered, grabbing Castiel's sleeve and taking two steps back, "I don't think any of them saw us. So if we just move slowly –"

"All right," Gabriel said, grabbing Castiel's sleeve and taking two steps back, "I don't think any of them saw us. So if we just move slowly –"

Castiel produced a stake and a handgun from his jacket pockets and ran straight into the fray.

"Or, do that," Gabriel sighed, searching his pockets for Kali's knife before following.

After a half hour of shooting, stabbing, running, and a distraction involving a skee ball, a gallon of ketchup, and several stuffed animals from the shooting range, Gabriel thought it was pretty safe to say his day had reached its weirdness limit. Looking around at the bodies of their dead-again attackers, he couldn't decide if it was weird or awesome that he had somehow helped recreate a battle the makers of "Zombieland" would envy. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Castiel reading a lop-sided sign for deep-fried Twinkies with a look of disgust.

"Now that," Gabriel said, the stench of burning flesh still hanging over the pair of them, "was almost enough to put me off food for a week." His growling stomach said otherwise.

All things considered, Gabriel was exhausted. He had hair in his eyes, which he couldn't brush away since his fingers were sticky from the small ocean of syrup he poured on his pancakes, and somehow to his sleep-deprived brain this struggle seemed on par with strategizing a war or bargaining for world peace.

Basically, he was going to need a fuckton more syrup on his pancakes just to function, even though it was only 8:30 at night.

The only people hanging around the all-hours diner he and Castiel had found in the middle of east-Jesus-nowhere were two older couples near the back, a woman circling "Wanted" ads in a booth by the door, and a guy eating pie at the counter Gabriel couldn't see very well. Most of the patrons were giving the brothers odd looks – in particular Gabriel, who looked and probably smelled like he had rolled around in something that died – but he could care less. At the moment, Gabriel was living solely for the maple syrup by Castiel's elbow.

"Cas, can you pass the…" Blinking a few times, Gabriel noticed the untouched cheeseburger first, then the silence. A silent Castiel was nothing out of the ordinary, but this was different from his typical, contemplative silence or even his eating silence.

Instead, Castiel was focused on the man sitting at the counter eating a slice of cherry pie. His brother's eyes were wider than saucers, watching like a hawk or like he was considering throwing himself between this guy and a speeding bullet. Gabriel thought this was pretty intense for having seen only the back of his head before he put two and two together.

Gabriel had never thought of his youngest brother as a sexual being, but now that he had he couldn't decide if he wanted to throw up or laugh hysterically. Prior to tonight he has assumed Castiel wasn't into anything – he'd basically been a monk at college and he continued to live alone out east. Watching his brother watch this stranger though gave Gabriel all the information he needed.

The man was, admittedly, good-looking though Gabriel also pegged him as cocky and a player based on a smirk he caught when a young blonde waitress bent over to pick up her pen next to his seat. He was tall, with short, sandy hair and a green jacket reminiscent of the one Gabriel had slung over the back of the booth.

As fascinating as watching the dude was, watching Castiel's face was even better. His normally creepy stare had morphed into something almost gooey, like this guy whose name he didn't even know was everything he had ever wanted in life. Gabriel swore he could see little sparkly hearts in his eyes, and though he was tempted to reach across the table and close his brother's open jaw, the whole scene was just too damn funny.

On his way to the cash register, Stranger Danger walked past their table before turning back to look at Castiel. Gabriel noted his green eyes, freckles, and pouty lips, classifying the whole package as attractive enough but probably hiding some serious issues.

Socially awkward fool that he was, Castiel kept right on staring. Caught off guard, an expression of confusion flitted across the green-eyed man's face before breaking out in a grin. With a wink at Castiel, he turned and moseyed toward the front of the diner.

Gabriel had to bite his hand to keep from laughing-slash-choking when Castiel turned to face him, his cheeks dark pink.

"What are you waiting for?" Gabriel asked once he could breathe again. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the green-eyed guy walk out the front door. "Follow him."

The usually gung-ho young man seated across from him looked suddenly nervous. "I don't think…"

"Good, don't think," Gabriel replied, finally snatching the bottle of syrup. "Isn't that what you're here for? A vacation from the pod people? Go get love while the getting is good, Casanova."

"What…" Castiel nearly whispered, his eyes growing even wider, "what do I say?"

Gabriel snorted. "I don't know, how about – " The phrase "your place or mine?" died on the tip of his tongue once he remembered _where_ Cas' current "place" was exactly. "I don't know, try thinking of something you might have in common with him and see if you can bring it up without sounding like a social reject."

Castiel frowned, hurt coloring his features, and Gabriel felt a twinge of guilt. "What would I have in common with someone like him?"

"Um, lots?" Gabriel's lame response earned an actual eye-roll from his brother. "I'm positive!" To emphasize his point Gabriel slapped both hands on the table, causing the rest of the diner to glare at them. "I mean, I've been out of the game for too long, but you have to start small and…"

Something outside caught Gabriel's eye. "See, look." He jerked his head toward the window, getting Castiel to look at where his mystery man was headed. "Right there, he has the same car as we do. There's your starting point. That's… kind of lame now that I think about it, but you're a nerd. I'm sure you can make that topic work."

"It's your car."

Gabriel winced. "I know, it was weird that I said 'we,' as in the car belongs to both of us but clearly –"

"No," Castiel replied with a sharp inhale, "that is your car."

Again, Gabriel's sleep-deprived brain took considerably longer than it should have to catch up.

"…Oh _fuck_."

Castiel's future boyfriend-turned-carjacker was pealing out of the parking lot as Gabriel and Castiel ran down the diner's front steps, the bells on the door jingling in their wake. Without a second though both brothers ran down the gravel road, Castiel's trench coat flapping in the night like some tan, demented bird as they pursued on foot.

"It was…" Gabriel gasped, slowing to a walk with his hands on his head roughly four minutes later, "it was… worth a shot. Cas! Cas, come back!"

Having made farther ground than his shorter sibling, Castiel finally stopped running but didn't turn around. With a huff, Gabriel stalked over to him in silence save for the crunching of gravel underfoot.

"Well I must say," Gabriel panted, watching his license plate and taillights mocking him from a steadily growing distance, "I've never known someone to combine the humble dine-and-dash with the lost art of grand theft auto, particularly in rural California."

Castiel turned to look at his brother blankly. "I'm not sure I understand the first –"

"I know you don't, champ," Gabriel replied. Turning his back on his younger brother, the older man retrieved his cell phone and held it aloft, wandering the back toward the diner in search of a spot of reception. Castiel continued to stare down the road, watching the dust kicked up by his brother's stolen car until it settled, until he couldn't hear the roar of the engine anymore.

* * *

><p>"You lose weight, Loki?"<p>

"I," Gabriel responded, swinging around a hunting knife he had confiscated from Castiel back at the diner, "have half a mind to shiv you right here and now, good sire."

Maintaining a straight face, Chuck Shurley lifted both hand off the steering wheel, letting his piece-of-shit truck drift between lanes a bit to illustrate how well that would work out for his passengers.

Chuckling, Gabriel ran a hand over his face and glanced back at Castiel, who was struggling against falling asleep in the narrow backseat. Once upon a time Chuck had been like a father to the younger Novak kids, despite not being that much older than Gabe. Like the Novaks, he had traveled the country hunting monsters and demons, living out of the truck they were currently cruising in like the cool uncle Gabe had always wanted.

After witnessing one death too many, though, the old pro checked himself into a mental health clinic, citing post traumatic stress disorder for reasons his psychiatrists would never fully understand. Despite settling back into society in Los Gatos, some days he still struggled with leaving his house.

Though the Novaks hated watching a family friend suffer, most members were less than impressed with his coping method of choice. In order to exorcise his own demons, Chuck started writing. Namely, he started writing a series of novels about a family of supernatural hunters. Gabriel had skimmed the first book of fourteen and found his own crazy past on the page – the distant father, the feuding brothers, the fed-up sister. Luckily for Chuck, most of the men and Anna were able to separate their lives from his literature, meaning the old bastard was still invited to family gatherings and called upon for monthly updates.

In all honesty, Gabriel was just happy Chuck came personally instead of siccing Becky on the boys. The latest in a not-so-lengthy line of girlfriends, Becky Rosen had initially stalked Chuck as a fan of his written work, but four months after their first date the secrets came out.

Becky was not just a bat-shit insane book fan; she was also a bat-shit insane hunter of the supernatural. She was great at it, Gabriel had to admit, at least if the scrapbook she made of her kills displayed on Chuck's coffee table was any indication. She was also genuinely in love with the lifestyle, and after searching far and wide for a partner who understood her crazy compulsions fixed on a fiction writer she was certain wasn't fabricating anything.

Chuck had apparently asked her to move in the morning after this chat. When asked by Gabriel if or when his better half would be introduced to the nonfictional Novaks, Chuck replied that she "wasn't quite there yet," for which Gabriel was immensely thankful.

"I'm telling you," Gabriel said, returning to the argument he and Chuck had started over the phone, "this plus the karmic killings around our area has the markings of a trickster."

"And I'm telling you," Chuck retorted, "you're jumping to conclusions. You saw this guy one time eating one slice of pie –"

"Three," Castiel corrected. Both men in the front seat turned to look at him. "I… I believe he had three slices of pie as the evening… progressed. Not that this has any bearing on your theory… not much bearing anyway." Castiel pointedly avoided further questioning by staring out the window, and Gabriel wondered if he realized just how much he had licked his lips during his mini-ramble.

Chuck shook his head, glaring ahead out the windshield. "Doesn't sound like a trickster. It just sounds like a guy who likes pie with a penchant for stealing cars."

Gabriel sighed dramatically, flopping back in his seat. "I'm disappointed in you, Chuck, thinking so inside the box these days. You know for a writer, your imagination is severely limited."

"Huh," Chuck responds.

"Huh what?" In the rearview mirror, Gabriel noticed Castiel's head drooping forward, eyelids inching closed.

When he looked forward again, the older hunter was giving him the side-eye. "You're one to talk about limited imaginations and losing your mojo. If I remember straight, you used to be a hell of a lot more chipper."

"I also used to be a teenager," Gabriel interjected. "Maybe I've just matured, outgrown my childish ways… Oh." He wrinkled his nose. "Now there's a scary thought."

"I'm just saying," Chuck continued, flapping his right hand in Gabriel's direction for emphasis, "we've been driving for almost four hours and so far you've only made three wisecracks with no lame puns or jokes or life-threatening pranks of any sort…" Realization dawned in his eyes. "She left you."

"Who left you?" Both men in the front jumped at Castiel's question.

"No one. I thought you were asleep," Gabriel said slowly, inclining his head toward his brother while giving Chuck a dark look. Chuck opened his mouth as if to answer Castiel then seemed to think better of it.

He cleared his throat before continuing his earlier line of questioning. "Anyway, what would you two have done to piss off a Tricks—oh." His eyes widened but remained focused on the road.

"Yeah, 'oh shit,'" Gabriel responded, and even Castiel snorted at that. Back in the family's hunting days Gabriel had been known across Kansas as the Trickster due to his uncanny ability to track the supernatural mischief-makers. Anna insisted it was because he could think like one, could predict their moves in a way no ordinary strategist could, and God only knew how far those tall tales had spread in years since he'd last been hunting.

"But stealing my car wouldn't be proper retribution," Gabriel mused aloud, deflating his own theory. "It's not nasty _enough_ for a trickster out for revenge. I mean, it's a low blow, but it's not awful."

Chuck gripped the steering wheel tighter and sighed. "Well, that's just super. 'Gee, my car got stolen but that's not bad enough for me!' Crazy kids," he muttered under his breath, causing Gabriel laugh outright. "Plus now I can't stop thinking about this 'proper retribution' and how if it really is a trickster we'll be lucky if your apartment complex is still standing when we get there…"

Fortunately for all three parties, the building was still standing when they pulled in early the next morning.

"Make sure to check for hexes before you go in," Chuck shouted over the idling engine. "Oh, and gas leaks! Do you have a carbon monoxide detector?"

"Goodnight, Doctor Death," Gabriel responded, slamming the truck's passenger door with a little more force than necessary.

The apartment was cursed, just not in the way Chuck predicted. As soon as his feet crossed the threshold of his apartment, Castiel in tow, Gabriel knew. His job, his apartment, his relationships… everything Los Angeles could possibly suck dry from him, it had. There was no more effort to be given anywhere in that town. The epiphany kept him up that night, tossing and turning through the witching hour and wrestling with his thoughts regarding family.

The next morning Gabriel dropped Castiel off downtown to find the police station and report Gabe's hijacked vehicle. The plan for Gabriel was to pick up his next paycheck and next assignment. Instead he picked up his last paycheck and resigned, giving his boss several choice parting words and hand gestures.

He started packing as soon as he got home, even managing to talk to his landlord and stop by a gas station for a cheap pair of sunglasses and $40-worth of Skittles before Castiel returned.

He started packing as soon as he got home, even managing to talk to his landlord and stop by a gas station for a cheap pair of sunglasses and $40-worth of Skittles before Castiel returned.

"You ready to rock this, Casbah?" Gabriel asked when his brother finally rematerialized, throwing his duffel bags in the trunk of the Impala before Castiel could stop him.

Castiel merely stared at him. "You… you're going to help me."

"Well," Gabriel replied, jogging back to his apartment with Castiel in tow, "let's get this bear over the mountain. Then we'll see what we can see."

Bounding over the threshold one last time, Gabriel surveyed the main living space, empty save for the couch, coffee table and television before yanking his jacket out of the coat closet. Several hangers clattered to the floor, and he left them there.

"You're leaving all of this here?" Castiel wondered from the doorway. "You have no… great emotional attachment to any of these objects?"

"The only thing _here_ that I care about is my subscription to the _National Enquirer_, and I cancelled that this morning," Gabriel retorted, gesturing widely around the barren room with a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "Now let's roll, Casio."

The hint of a smile played on Castiel's lips as he pulled the apartment door closed after his brother.

* * *

><p>"Your car hates me."<p>

Gabriel slammed the hood of the Impala closed, and Castiel winced.

"Relax, I'm not hurting your girlfriend," Gabriel said, pushing the hair out of his eyes and unrolling his pushed-up shirtsleeves. The duo found themselves pulled over on the shoulder of a back-road somewhere still in California. Whilst bickering over the route of choice (since neither brother bothered to print off directions or invest in a GPS), an obnoxious rattling began emitting from the car's engine. It was opportunity enough for Gabriel to get out and investigate, yet after fifteen minutes of searching everything seemed to be as it should – no leaks, no missing pieces…

Gabriel circled the car again. He had no idea what year the model was, but it had to be older than Castiel. Still, none of the black paint was chipped or faded, nothing vital seemed to be missing in the engine, and in case of emergency there was a spare tire in the trunk somewhere under the false bottom and hunting weaponry (or so Cas assured him).

Gabriel kicked one of the back tires. "When was the last time you had it looked at?"

Castiel contemplated, scratching the back of his neck. "Three… four years ago?"

Gabriel's eyebrows shot up. "And I'm assuming you don't work on it yourself."

Castiel shook his head.

Gabriel took a step back to better survey the car. "Well there's your problem," he drawled.

"But I haven't had any problems with it before," his brother protested. "Not since you –"

"Stop." Gabriel held up one reprimanding finger. "I know you don't enjoy being the passenger in your own car, or being told what to do in general, it's just… you suck at driving. So much. It's just… sad, really."

Castiel glowered, his blue eyes boring through his older brother, but made no attempt to argue. His road skills were pitiful – veering in and out of lanes while driving at night, cruising with one tire on the shoulder of the road, accelerating and decelerating at alarming rates. Gabriel wondered fleetingly who had taught him to drive before pushing his guilt down and opening the driver's side door.

Turning the key in the ignition, Gabriel leaned across the front seat and punched Castiel on the shoulder in apology. "What did you think it was running on, Cassandra? Prayer?"

Castiel huffed and turned his eyes toward the sky. "I would believe it," he muttered gravely. Gabriel just laughed and shifted gears.

Gabriel told himself the plan was to drive Castiel and his stupid car back to New York. From there he would catch a plane and vamoose, maybe back to California, even though there wasn't anything he anticipated returning to. On second thought, maybe he could visit Lucifer in Texas or Balthazar wherever he was kicking around now.

He had mentally narrowed Balthazar's whereabouts down to Seattle or Atlanta when Castiel spoke up.

"Why are you taking me back?"

Gabriel chanced a glance at him, catching Castiel in a rare moment when he wasn't staring creepily at anything. Instead, his eyes were unfocused, gazing forward but probably not registering the landscape they were flying through. Gabriel took a second to memorize his forlorn expression before turning his eyes back to the road ahead.

"Because as much as I love you I think a car-jacking resulting in desertion in rural California is enough trouble for one visit," Gabriel answered, adding with a shudder, "and don't even get me started on the vampire wars, the ghosts, the creepy possessed children, and the zombie coven you uncovered at that abandoned amusement park. That was enough adventure for me, thank you very much."

Castiel nodded, whether in agreement or just assessment Gabriel couldn't tell. Another moment's silence passed before he spoke again. "But why are _driving_ me back? You could have stuck me on a plane –"

"You hate planes," Gabriel interjected before he could stop himself.

"That doesn't matter to anyone else," Castiel said, leveling Gabriel with a stare. The older man looked away, wondering errantly why his brother referred to it as "back" rather than "home."

Being in a generous and topic-changing mood, Gabriel let Castiel choose what music they listened to for the rest of the drive. Castiel chose to keep the radio off.

Barring a Woman in White trying to run them off the road one night in the Rockies, the trip continued uneventfully until the brothers had nearly reached the east border of Nevada. Gabriel was sulking due to Castiel refusing to get out of the car when they drove through Las Vegas, missing the grand opportunity to test his perfect poker face. Gabe was also on edge after driving _through_ the Rocky Mountains; his plan to "go around" by way of Mexico was vetoed by Cas, who made a compelling argument about going through all barriers physical or emotional in life that Gabriel tuned out after five minutes.

To top it all off, they had stopped in a town to track what Castiel thought was a chupacabra but turned out to be just another flock of "vegetarian" vampires. The lack of chupacabra depressed Gabriel more than it should have, and to Castiel's amazement and confusion, he spent the walk from the farm back into town in silence.

Mostly, Gabriel pondered why he kept getting so dirty on these hunts while Castiel remained rumpled but relatively clean. Once again, he found his boots caked in mud, his jeans ripped and bloodied, and now his favorite plaid shirt was torn straight down the left sleeve. It just wasn't fair, he mused before remembering the suffering endured by Lucifer back when they worked together. He wondered if Castiel ever heard the story about the time Lucifer almost got scalped by a rabid werewolf…

Gabriel was so lost in thought he nearly missed the red Mustang with his license plates parked in front of Ellie Mae's diner across the street in broad daylight. Fortunately, he didn't; stopping dead in his tracks, he even doubled back for a second and then third look before Castiel finally realized he wasn't being followed and came back for his brother.

Any other responsible adult faced with Gabriel's predicament would have taken out their cell phone to call the local authorities while staying in a position to keep an eye on the car and the location of the suspected thief.

Gabriel did the 14-year-old-boy thing by grabbing Castiel and dragging him into the nearest alley, basically body-slamming his taller brother against a dumpster.

"You didn't report my car missing, did you?" Gabriel asked, keeping his voice level. His fists clenched in the lapels of Castiel's trench coat. He wasn't sure how he knew, how it wasn't a possibility that no civilian in this town kept up with stolen car reports or was too lazy to call the cops when they saw it.

He knew though in the half-second after asking when he saw more emotion in Castiel's eyes than he'd seen in the past 23 years. His brother had it bad. For a possible trickster… _oh this was bad_. Castiel was not just a messed-up Novak, he was basically on his way to being a psychopath. What if this guy committed murder somewhere down the line – would Castiel cover his track then, too? Considering the stupid things _ordinary_ people did when they were in love –

"No," Castiel replied just as evenly, his blue eyes flickering to look over Gabriel's head and interrupt his internal monologue. Turning his head, the older Novak saw the green-eyed, green-jacketed stranger walking out of the diner, car keys a-jingling in his hand.

Gabriel sighed and let his brother go. "And for that, lover boy, you get to be bait. Give me your keys and get your ass over there."

Castiel did so without asking a single question, which worried Gabriel on a multitude of levels.

Ridding his mind of the image of his brother talking to He Who Had Yet to be Named and biting his lip like that sad girl from _Twilight_, Gabriel dashed down the street to the municipal parking lot in which Castiel's Impala waited.

He still wasn't 100% convinced this guy wasn't something paranormal, and in the interest of being safe rather than sorry this once, Gabriel popped the trunk. Taking out a weighted flashlight he hoped would come in handy later, he cleared a space amidst the luggage and litter and using Kali's blade began slicing into the rug-like fabric lining the trunk. Castiel could bust his ass about messing up his car later. Right now he was too focused on drawing every sigil in the book, any symbol that could block or be used to trap something, anything at all he could remember from past experience. He even threw down a liberal amount of salt just because before closing the door and jumping in the driver's seat.

Parking the Impala behind the diner out of sight from any unsuspecting patrons a few minutes later, Gabriel snuck around front. He crouched beside his car, testing the doors and finding them locked. The bastard flirting with Cas probably had them; Gabriel figured he would cross that bridge when he came to it though.

The green-eyed guy was honest-to-Jesus laughing at something Castiel had just said or done. Gabriel shook his head; the longer he stayed in the picture, the more likely someone was going to get hurt. Better it was this dude now than Castiel in the future.

In one swift movement, Gabriel hefted his flashlight and decked the guy in the back of the head with it. The task was easier said than done, considering the dude was like six feet tall and Gabriel was decidedly not. Gabriel couldn't see his face but he could just picture those green eyes rolling back in his head as his knees gave out and he hit the pavement face-first in front of Castiel's shoes.

Gabriel knelt over the body and looked up at Castiel, whose face was frozen in a mask of horror. "What? I just needed to slow him down a bit," Gabriel defended, unlocking the Impala before grabbing the man's ankles. "Here, help me put him in the trunk."

"That's your plan?" Castiel growled, nevertheless picking their victim up by grabbing under his arms.

"I don't know what my plan is," Gabriel grunted, giving his Mustang one last look, "I was making this up along the way. I guess we'll unload him at the motel and see what he has to say for himself."

When the brothers popped the trunk in the motel parking lot not fifteen minutes later, it was empty. There wasn't as much as a hair or a drop of blood to signify someone had been in there earlier that afternoon. The upholstery, however, was as pristine as the day the Impala came off the assembly line.

"Huh," said Gabriel, frowning as he pulled a half-melted Whatchamacallit out of his pocket. "Well there's several theories we can rule out, eh Cass-o-matic?"

Castiel, of course, said nothing, cocking his head to one side.

**A/N**: There are second and third parts coming (maybe more if the plot bunnies keep multiplying), but I'm not 100% sure how I want it to end yet. I just watched "Hammer of the Gods," so I'm kind of inspired to go in that direction, but I'm also a big proponent of happy endings, so we'll see. Also, Spellcheck recognizes "Whatchamacallit" but not "Castiel." Priorities, Spellcheck - you do not have them.


End file.
